The Marquette Men’s Basketball 2013 Home Big East Schedule Guide

Because you’re not going to go to the snowed in Tuesday night February Rutgers game

By Kyle Stack

2012 has come and gone. The Marquette men’s basketball season is in full swing. Like most people, you couldn’t get a ticket to the aircraft carrier game in Charleston and a Thanksgiving trip to Maui just wasn’t in the budget. Yes I know you went “hard in the paint” for the Saturday night game against Wisconsin the weekend before finals, but now it’s time for the Big East slate of games to start, and let’s be honest, you’re not going to the Wednesday night game during midterms. However, this year’s schedule is highlighted by five, yes five, Saturday afternoon games. So, they question is, what games are worthy of pulling you out of your Raynor hole.

January: It all begins on New Year’s Day. The last couple of January 1^st games have been less than enjoyable. This is not because of the team’s performance, they have actually gone 3-0 on Jan 1^st games, but because of the agonizingly early tip off times. Take the 10 am game against West Virginia two years ago when most students’ breakfast or lack thereof, found its way to the floor of the shuttle buses from the annex.

Fortunately, this year’s New Year’s Day game is a 7 PM matchup versus UCONN. While Connecticut is not up to the standard of its previous teams, they are still a big name school who will attract a much livelier January 1^st BMO Harris Bradley Center crowd. This means you can take the whole day to watch college football and recover from the long night that was and still make it to the game in plenty of time.

One has to remember that these early January games are all over winter break. Most of the underclassmen won’t be on campus or at the games. For those lucky few who do decide to stick around (not those people we hate who go to Cancun every winter break) there is a great January 5^th matchup against Georgetown. What makes this game so inviting is that it falls on a Saturday afternoon, so all those Chicago area students should have no excuses to miss one of the better Big East games this season.

Then, a few road games litter the schedule and before you know it second semester is here. The first game back when school is in session is a Wednesday the 16th tilt against Seton Hall. Unless you have been away awhile on break and are desperate to see a basketball game the correct answer to this game is “pass”.

Now a trend begins to surface towards the end of January. A Saturday afternoon game on the 26^th against Providence would normally be “pass” type of game, but one does not simply miss a Saturday afternoon game. South Florida makes its way towards the arctic to wrap up the first month of the year and even the Comm. majors will be staying in for that game catching up on their “homework”.

February:

Only three home games show up on the calendar for the Warriors in February. Among those three games include back-to-back Saturday afternoon games against decent or solid opponents. For those of you who were planning on doing homework on the weekend this month, woof! It’s not going to happen if you are planning on making your way down to the BMO on the 9^th and 16^th. Marquette’s long time rival, DePaul, travels to Milwaukee on the first weekend and Big East exile Pittsburgh makes its last appearance in the brew city on the 16th.

Both of those games will surprisingly be overshadowed by the third and final game of February. The Orangemen of Syracuse roll into the 414 on the 25^th for a nationally televised ESPN Monday night game. Students and alumni alike will need to be in full voice to impress the national audience and give Syracuse the proper goodbye it deserves as it leaves the Big East conference after this year. Buzz Williams and the Warriors seem to have a knack for sending a rough goodbye to teams leaving the conference as they two-stepped West Virginia out of the Big East a season ago.

March:

One game to rule them all! You all thought the Wisconsin game was fun? That won’t even compare to this year’s senior day when the dommers of Notre Dame take on Marquette for a Saturday afternoon nationally televised ESPN game. If there is one thing most Marquette students can agree on it, it would be their hatred of Notre Dame, and nothing makes you hate the golden dommers more than a few too many before tip-off. The BMO Harris Bradley Center will be sold out and this is the type of game where buying a student ticket comes at a very steep price.

This fifth and final Saturday afternoon game will be your last opportunity to see Marquette play in person this season. That is unless you plan on spending your spring break in New York City to see them play in the Big East Tournament. Then again, if you have already been to all the games listed above, you might as well just save some money and buy your own damn plane ticket to Cancun. There is such a thing as a TV.